Toy vehicles are well-known. For decades, children have enjoyed playing with toys which have the appearance of a vehicle such as a car, truck or the like. Such toys can be relatively tiny such that the vehicle can be concealed within a single hand, or can be relatively large allowing the child to actually climb into the vehicle. In addition, not only can such toys have the appearance of a vehicle, but they can also have many of the actual features of the vehicle. For example, they can have actual rotating wheels, steerable front or back wheels, openable doors, and the like.
Another popular toy over the decades, if not centuries, has been the family of products under the category of toy guns. Again, such toys can be provided in a variety of formats with some simply having the appearance of a gun with no moving parts and no actual ability to fire a projectile whatsoever. Molded plastic pistols would be one example of such a simple toy. Others actually can fire projectiles with one example being a water gun or a squirt gun. Still others allow for darts or foam projectiles to be launched. For example, Hasbro, the assignee of the present application, continues to enjoy significant success with its line of toys having the ability to launch Nerf® projectiles with or without the ability to simultaneously squirt water or the like.
A still further category of toys which continues to enjoy success are those that are able to be reconfigured from one appearance to another, such as those marketed by the present assignee under the Transformers® trademark. While certainly more modern than toy vehicles and toy guns, such toys have been known for a number of years and allow a child to reconfigure a toy from one appearance to another. For example, such toys allow the child to reconfigure a static object such as a building or house or the like into an animal, monster or the like. Similarly, a toy can be provided in the form a vehicle such as a truck which can be reconfigured into the form of a robot U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,516,948 and 4,599,078 disclose such a toy. Still other toys ale provided in the form of a vehicle which can be reconfigured into a toy at least having the appearance of a gun. U.S. Pat. No. 5,924,910 is an example of such a toy, but such a toy is not capable of actually firing any type of projectile. One toy which is capable of actually firing projectiles is that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,350,172, but it is not a reconfigurable toy as described above, but rather is simply a bicycle which, when its front wheel is removed, can be adjusted so as to be able to launch simulated missiles.
From the foregoing, it can be seen that a need exists for a toy which is able to combine the benefits of all of the aforementioned features.